Then she backed away completely. Fighting her own breathlessness.
With that, she marched out. Two steps out the door, she got a party invitation from Erik on her phone. She said yes without even hesitating, not understanding why going to a party with another man felt like a jab at Dr. Tekkin.
#
The party was in some crappy house just off campus. It was three stories and supposedly held six people, each with their own bedrooms. The house had once belonged to some rich family at the turn of the century. According to Erik’s friend who lived there, the servants’ quarters were still there, even though it was basically used for storage. He said the house had almost zero insulation. In the winter, it could get a little chilly but that was what Southern California was for.
“It’s just a party,” he said. “No real theme or anything. Just a hang. Free alcohol and we don’t have to worry about cleaning it up later.”
If she thought parties in her graduate career would be a little more sophisticated, maybe cheese and crackers and tiny sausages next to tiny cups of Dijon mustard, she was proved wrong here. People close to their age having conversations on the patio, and undergrads with popped collars and too-short skirts, wandered in from other party-hopping excursions. Inside the house was even worse. Someone or several someones took up every available surface to sit. Beer cans and red solo cups littered the area and two frat boys drunkenly made attempts to get a game of beer pong going, but lacked the coordination at the moment to even set up the triangle of cups.
“Guess the first couple of weeks of the term did a number on them, huh?” Erik asked with a snicker.
When Alessia had been in undergrad, she had never been much of a party animal. She didn’t even drink alcohol until she was twenty years old. In fact, she smoked pot before she’d even done that and it was only because she was out with her roommate visiting her friends from some artsy school downtown. She didn’t want to be the only one not coughing up a lung in the bathroom. She tried alcohol for the first time when her friend offered to buy her some pumpkin beer from the gas station in the fall of her sophomore year. After that, she hadn’t turned into some party animal or alcoholic fish. It had taken over a year for her to actually like the taste of beer, even longer for wine after several bouts of white zinfandel warmed her up to the idea.
Now she drank only red and hoppy, bitter beers. It was a metaphor for growing up, she figured. Her tastes began to match the total decay in her soul.
They walked into the kitchen and had an array of choices in front of them. Erik went into the fridge to pull out a couple cans of whatever beer was stocked in there, but Alessia made right for the half-full bottle of Jack sitting on the counter, pouring herself a generous ounce and taking the longest gulp she could handle while it sweetened on her tongue, and then burned on the way down.
“All right then,” Erik said, looking at her and cracking her beer open. She finished the whiskey and drank that too. “Rough week.”
“You have no idea.”
“Tekkin getting up your butt again?”
“You have no idea.”
At this point, she realized she could never tell anyone about that weekend, not for a long time. Everything was too close to the situation. Dr. Tekkin and his friends could be anywhere, watching from anywhere, planning some new horrible attack at any moment and calling it something benign like a freedom rally or some other lie. No one had been hurt on Saturday, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know how to recognize when someone was willing to use force and violence. This wasn’t a peaceful group; it was the kind that would rather burn down law and order than obey it.
She chugged her beer. In five minutes, she was done and reaching for another one.
“Did you have dinner?” Erik asked. “I think there’s some chips around here or something.”
Classic alcohol safety from freshman year. It was cute, but she wasn’t in the mood. She was here to get drunk; she hadn’t been in a long time and wanted to see it happen now. She’d never blacked out but maybe tonight could be the night. It’d be worth it. She cracked her beer open; it went down so fast and so bubbly that she let out a burp when she pulled the can away. She was already past the point of embarrassment.
“Okay,” Erik said, taking the can away. “Maybe take five.”
She gave him the five he requested and then drank some more. She finished the can and moved back in for the whiskey. She spent the entire night downing what she could, not stopping until she was completely dizzy and felt like she couldn’t get up from the couch. Maybe then, all her fear and frustrations would just go away.
Chapter 10
“All right, let’s keep it upright, yeah?”
Erik had his hand wrapped around her waist tightly and had put her arm closest to him over his shoulders. He walked her down the street as she took a misstep with nearly every step. She wasn’t the giggling type, apologizing for her sloppiness like the girl and her boyfriend across the street doing the same thing. She was hard in the face, scowling, daring the sidewalk to try to trip her.
“You know, in all honesty? I was kind of hoping tonight would be a mostly sober night,” he said with obvious frustration she could make out even through her haze.
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“I don’t like kissing drunk girls.”
“Good thing you’re not kissing me then.”
Later, when she was sober, she would come to understand exactly what he meant by that statement and she would cringe just a little bit. But right now, everything and everyone around her was the enemy and she was ready to fight even the tree in that front yard if it got too snippy with her. The problem was, of course, she was fairly certain she would remember this all in the morning. She hadn’t achieved her black out and she knew exactly everything she said and did, and would get the embarrassment to go with it.
“Let’s just get you home,” Erik sighed.
Perhaps it was a good thing he’d managed to find out where she lived the last time they were together. Alessia had absolutely no clue where she was. But Erik directed her down the street, pulled her to turn at certain points, and kept her moving down until the campus came into view. She gained a little more autonomy though she didn’t think the drinks were wearing off anytime soon.
“Everything okay here?”
Alessia would know that voice anywhere, no matter how many drinks she had, no matter if she was at the bottom of the ocean hearing it muffled through thousands of gallons of water. She knew Dr. Tekkin was there before she turned and saw him, felt his presence, maybe even felt a little bit of his heat—or wished that she did. She turned, pulling herself out of Erik’s tight grasp and turning to see him standing there. This time it was in an Aerosmith shirt and she wondered if he didn’t pretend to be obsessed with dad rock to make himself seem older than he really was. His tattered jeans were still there and so were his Doc Martens.
However, outside the lecture hall, outside his domain and arena, he seemed much more vulnerable, much smaller.
“Just trying to get her back to her place,” Erik said, coming back to grab her and Dr. Tekkin scowled.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, so I’m going to head off now.”
Dr. Tekkin stepped in front of them. “I actually think I’ll take it from here.”
Dr. Tekkin thought Erik would try something. She knew he wouldn’t or at least she was pretty sure he wouldn’t. He said himself he didn’t kiss drunk girls and didn’t seem to be faking the miserable look on his face at having to drag her back to her home. But Dr. Tekkin didn’t know that.
“Dude, it’s fine. Seriously. I know where her apartment is. I’m just going to drop her off and make sure she has water,” Erik said, trying to push past Dr. Tekkin and she stumbled with him.
“So do I and I think I’d feel more comfortable if I took her there.”
“Yeah, well I wouldn’t. I’m her friend.”
“And I’m her mentoring professor.”
They were at a gridlock, a stand still. They glared at each other, waiting for the other to do something. It wouldn’t be Erik; she was trapped on his side, and he wouldn’t have much to defend himself with if Dr. Tekkin did make a move towards him. But he stood firm, planting his feet in the ground, digging his heels in like a petulant child. She wanted to tell them both to fuck off, to move away, and let them have their pissing contest by themselves. There was no way, however, she’d make it more than a few steps without tripping, or one of them running after her and the whole process starting over again.
“You can both take me home,” she said. “Just get me there fast. I’m ready to sleep on that bench over there.”
It was another few seconds of staring and glaring before she started moving again. With Erik still latched onto her, Dr. Tekkin was on her other side. He wasn’t touching her. He was just out of arm’s reach. But he was watching her, very closely. His eyes constantly darting over. Her apartment building came into view and Erik asked her for the key to the front door. She dug around in her pocket for it, pulling it out and handing it to him. She forgot to tell him which key was which, so he fumbled for a bit with them until he got the right one in the front door, and they made their way in. She directed them to the correct floor in the elevator and the process of trial and error with the keys started all over again at her apartment door, until the familiar and welcoming smell of her apartment hit her in the face and she was ready to just drop into her bed.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” she said and shooed them to the door. “Good night.”
“I really think you should drink some—”
“Good night.”
They were out in the hallway and she shut the door, locking it to keep them from coming back in. Whatever fist fight they would get into, they could do it in the hallway where she didn’t have to be a witness. She walked back into the apartment, made her way to her bedroom, and dropped into the bed without even taking her shoes off first. She didn’t think the intoxication solved anything; her mind still swam with images of Dr. Tekkin’s face. She didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing.
Chapter 11
She hated herself when she woke up. Her head felt like her forehead had been reattached to the rest of her skull with rusty nails punched in by a toddler. Every vein in her head throbbed out a beat. She was sure it would just blow its top off and that would be that—no more skull, no more brain, and sweet release of the pressure there. The rest of her ached as she tried to move it, joints practically screeching as she moved to sit up. Her throat was sore, scratchy, dry. She needed water. Cold, ice-cold water. That would soothe her throat and end the unrelenting headache boiling up and over, underneath the hair thickness of her skull.
Getting up and moving only made the world spin, however, and nausea took over in her stomach like a whirlpool. She took a glance at her phone to see the time was nearly noon and she had several texts from Erik and a missed call between when she saw him last and this morning—well, afternoon now that the clock ticked five minutes past midday. She rarely slept this long and she felt like she should go back into bed and sleep even longer. But first, she needed a total ice bath, just complete submersion in a tub full of ice cubes and frozen water. She wanted to dunk her head in a freezer to make the throbbing go away.
Since that wasn’t an option, she fumbled for Tylenol in her cabinet instead and poured out water from her Brita filter into a tall glass and threw it back like it was a shot. The water hit her throat like it was the elixir of life itself; she hastily moved to refill the filter and try it all over again. Coffee. She needed coffee. Strong, black coffee. She was out though; she’d been meaning to get coffee this weekend and now she hated herself for being so stupid as to not think to get it before now. She hated past Alessia for her procrastination.
“Fuck. Me,” she hissed to herself, knocking her head against the stainless steel of the fridge and instantly regretting it.
And then, like the universe answered all her prayers, someone knocked at the door. She considered just ignoring it, thinking it was the Steve guy from down the hall who was always experimenting with food creation in his kitchen and constantly asked her for salt. But, for the sake of just seeing if the cosmos felt kind, she walked over to the door and looked through the peephole. There stood Dr. Tekkin, in the same clothes he’d been in last night, holding a tray of coffee in front of him. He looked tired and a little anxious. She could see that he was nervously tapping his foot against the hardwood of the hallway. It seemed like there was a god, a god with a sense of humor. Of course, they would deliver her coffee in the form of him, but she wouldn’t be a chooser when sweet salvation was so close. She opened the door and he looked completely shocked at the turn of events.
“Oh.”
It was not often she got to see him speechless. It felt like a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon but she didn’t have time to appreciate it when she could smell the coffee right there, her eyes darting to it.
“Is that for me?”
“Uh, yeah. I thought you might need it,” he said, sticking it out in the no man’s land between them.
She took the entire tray and moved back into her apartment, leaving the door open as invitation for him to follow her in.
“Who did you con to let you into the building?” she asked, taking a deep sip from the first cup she grabbed, not caring that the temperature was just a little too hot to be comfortable against her throat and lips.
She heard him step in behind her and shut the door. “I may have given a coffee to the security guard.”
“Good to know they’re so easily bribed.”
She didn’t care. All that mattered was that coffee sat in her hand right now and she needed to get as much of it as possible into her mouth and down her throat before she exploded.
“These all for me?” she asked, pointing to the other two cups in the tray.
He shrugged. “I figured you could use all the medication you could get.”
He seemed so much younger now, like whatever he effected in class or on campus was gone when he walked into her apartment. It was like some truth veil waited at the threshold of her front door and it stripped away all his masks and false attitudes. He stood there, looking small for the first time since she’d first seen him. His hands were shoved into his pockets and his head was down towards the ground. He seemed tired and nervous, and wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and her.
“So, last night was fun,” she said, wincing as she remembered it in full force. “Sorry you had to see that.”
“I’m just glad you got home safe.”
“Erik wouldn’t have tried anything, you know. He said so himself.”
“Well, I had to be sure.”
She wondered if this would become a habit of his, coming to her rescue, wanting to defend her. She wasn’t a damsel or some naïve maiden, but she always didn’t mind the way he seemed to appear out of every corner to glare at whatever enemies stared her down. She took another sip of her coffee to fill the silence. He watched her sip at it.
“Well, thank you,” she said.
There was more silence, painfully awkward silence. And there was only so much coffee her stomach could take at once before it decided to throw back up the contents. Especially with the way it churned on empty.
“Listen, we’re on all sorts of wrong feet,” he said. “That’s obvious I think.”
“Yes, because you were an asshole.”
She had a certain amount of bravery in speaking with him when it was outside the lecture hall. They were in her arena now and she’d be willing to say what she wanted to, what she needed to. She didn’t care at that point; she already had a pounding headache.
“My opinions still stand,” he said. “But yeah, I could have been nicer about it. I’ll admit.”
“And there was the whole kidnapping.”
“You weren’t kidnapped. You got knocked unconscious and we carried you to safety.”
&nbs
p; “It’s interesting how people can remember events so differently.”
He glared. That became a very common look for him, she almost forgot what it looked like when he smiled. If he ever did smile more than once in one day.
“So, in the spirit of the feet being wrong,” he said. “Why don’t we get dinner or something, huh?”
“Dinner?”
“Yeah. I’ll buy, you pick. We could even just get appetizers or something. I would say we could just go for a beer, but I’m sure you don’t even want to think about alcohol after last night.” There it was. The smile, the rare sight for the day. “We’re stuck together the rest of the semester; we might as well try to make the most of it.”
He had a point. Well, he had more than a point. He was right. Nothing would get solved by tiptoeing around each other and avoiding glances. They had to get control of this if they were to make any part of this relationship work and any part of class work. It might have been the throbbing headache that caused her quick acceptance, but she nodded.
“That wouldn’t be such a bad idea,” she sighed.
“Tell me how you really feel.”
He smiled some more. Twice in one day. What a strange week she was having.
#
She didn’t know much about the restaurants in the area so she did an alarming amount of research before she gave Dr. Tekkin her answer. This felt like a power play or, at the very least, she wasn’t about to be ousted in any way. Whatever strange game he was playing, she couldn’t let him win. He already had the upper hand on her in several ways. A date wasn’t something she would let him monopolize—
Date?
He did say he’d pay. But that was also because he was trying to make up for the fact that she’d been the victim of kidnapping by his own political faction. It was an odd sort of situation. But it wasn’t a date… was it? She was never good at figuring things like this out. Apparently, all the banter she’d had with Erik over the past few weeks was tantamount to flirting in his eyes. Was she flirting with Dr. Tekkin? Did he see it that way? He seemed like such a machine, totally incapable of flirting; she hadn’t even considered it to be a possibility.
Hero's Bride (Alien SciFi Romance) (Celestial Mates Book 7) Page 41
